332 National trends of dermatology procedures during the COVID pandemic

The COVID19 pandemic has caused a major disruption in healthcare delivery as restrictions have limited the ability to seek elective procedures This investigation aimed to assess the pandemic impact on the incidence of dermatology procedures compared to the pre-pandemic period TrinetX, a national federated healthcare database comprised of 61 million patient records, was used to identify the incidence of new dermatology procedures performed each month for two periods of the pandemic The first period was from Apr-July 2020, and the second was from Aug-Nov 2020 The mean for each variable was then compared with the pooled monthly incidence from similar periods between 2018-2019 before the pandemic Descriptive analyses were performed, and comparisons were made using a student's t-test Procedures were identified by CPT codes and categorized into groups In the Apr-July 2020 period, 11 groups of procedures showed a significant statistical decrease in incidence by up to 47 3% They included: Excision of benign lesions, shaving of epidermal/dermal lesions, skin tag removal, skin biopsy, paring/cutting procedures, surgical procedures on nails, surgical procedures on pilonidal cyst, destruction of malignant lesions, destruction of benign/premalignant lesions, Mohs surgery, and incision and drainage procedures The incidence of debridement procedures during the initial COVID period was similar to overlapping months in 2018 and 2019 In the late pandemic period, 10 procedure groups demonstrated a significant statistical decrease in incidence The incidence of debridement procedures and surgical procedures on pilonidal cysts during the later COVID period was similar to overlapping months in 2018 and 2019 The statistically significant decrease in dermatology procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic may suggest that the general public is postponing skin care placing a greater burden on healthcare